The present invention relates to a method for pickling and/or etching iron and steel goods which are to be further worked, e.g. which are to be zink-coated or electro-plated.
The goods concerned most often consist of hot and cold rolled steel which during the working processes to which it is subjected becomes contaminated with oil, grease, weld-sprays, etc. The major part of hot-rolled steel is covered with a rolling skin (scale), and hence the product produced from the steel material will have mixed surfaces of pure steel and scale.
This scale must therefore be removed, in order to obtain a steel surface suitable for surface treatment. The scale can be removed by means of a number of methods, for instance by sand blasting, grinding, scale-splitting or pickling techniques.
Although sand-blasting and grinding may be the most suitable processes in the case of many products, these processes are often much too expensive when the surfaces to be cleaned are large.